in that sleep of death what dreams may come
by adventurtle
Summary: [calypso/leo, for the capture the flag competition] In which Leo dies and ends up on Calypso's island. Unfortunately, things don't quite go as planned. {major character deaths}


_in that sleep of death what dreams may come_

* * *

_Written for the Capture the Flag competition. Round 1 - pairing: Caleo.  
_

* * *

All it takes is an arrow in the chest for Leo to realize that he's known, since the very beginning of this quest, that he would die.

It doesn't hurt. It didn't hurt when the arrow hit him, it didn't hurt when he fell to the ground, and it still doesn't hurt, even as he feels his life trickling out of his body along with his blood.

And suddenly there's a crowd around him; his friends and even his not-so friends, and the battlefield is empty and they've won, but there's blood stains on the mud and other bodies lying on the ground with various wounds decorating their bodies, and that hurts way more than the arrow.

Piper puts her hand on his cheek and starts talking to him, telling him that he's going to be fine and that he's going to survive, and he can hear the charmspeak in her words but it doesn't matter, it's not going to work.

He tells her so, blood trickling out of his mouth along with the words. Piper pulls her hand away from his face. Her tears replace it.

Leo just smiles.

"It's okay," he coughs, "it's gonna be okay. You'll be okay in the end, Piper, I promise."

"_An oath to keep with a final breath_," Jason says to his left. "What oaths have you made, Leo? Tell me."

"I swore..." He coughs again, blood spilling out and painting his lips bright red. "I swore to Calypso that I would find her again. I guess now I never will."

The smile disappears from his face. Hazel pushes forward, and grasps the arrow with a determined look on her face.

"We can heal you. I'm sure we can."

"No, Hazel," Leo murmurs, batting her hands away with what little strength he has left. "Let me go. I'm going to die, and there's nothing you can do to stop it."

"You're not, you're not going to die," she says, with tears streaming down her face.

Leo just smiles again.

"Listen – I love you all. Tell the others... tell the others I'm sorry. And my father too."

Slowly, his eyes take on the dreamy quality of someone who's finally seeing something more, and he opens his blood stained lips one last time.

"Goodbye," he murmurs.

And then his eyes go blank.

* * *

Leo wakes up to the smell of the sea and the sound of birds chirping. Next, the sound of waves crashing against the shore hits him, and then he realizes he's lying on a sandy beach.

He doesn't feel very dead.

There's an ache in his chest and his face is itchy from the sand scraping against it, and he feels way too uncomfortable to actually be dead.

He can hear someone singing in the background, a clear, soothing female voice that feels familiar to him, like he's heard it before. The song is sad, too sad for a voice like that to be singing, and he feels like getting up and taking the girl's hands and wiping any stray tears from her face and making the song happy.

The voice is getting closer, he notes, and he can hear footsteps in the sand a few meters away.

Suddenly, whoever is approaching stops short. She stops walking, stops singing, and Leo hears something fall to the ground with a slight metallic clinging sound.

He can feel the icy cold waves of sudden realization emanating from her, even though he can't even see her face. So, slowly, ever so slowly, he turns his head as much as he can without amplifying the ache in his bones, careful to not get sand in his mouth, and his eyes meet those of the girl above him.

She's wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, her caramel coloured hair is tied up in a simple ponytail and, lying in the sand next to her, there's a tiny, simply crafted figurine of a bronze dragon and a glowing silver flower.

The girl above him is Calypso.

* * *

The next time he wakes up, the first thing he sees is a flower. It's silver, glowing slightly in the darkness of the room he's currently in, just lying there on the bedside table. It's pretty, he thinks, and it lights up the room just enough for him to be able to see where he is.

The walls are dark grey stone, rough and slightly mossy, and curve upwards to meet in a point right in the middle of ceiling, from which hangs a sort of chandelier decorated with more of those odd glowing flowers. The floor is made up of sand, the sparse furniture residing in the cave wedged lopsidedly in it. The bed he's lying in is old and rickety, but the mattress is soft and the sheets are clean and white so honestly, he can't complain.

Other than the bed and the bedside table, there's a desk in one corner and a wardrobe in another, both made of the same dark, shiny wood and decorated with carving of birds, butterflies and such.

He pushes off the covers slowly, sitting up in bed and stretching. Someone – probably Calypso – rid him of his old, bloody, dirty clothes while he was asleep, leaving him in nothing but boxers. He blushes slightly at the thought of Calypso undressing him, but then chases the thought out of his mind as thoroughly as possible.

Fortunately, there's a clean pair of jeans and a white shirt lying at the foot of the bed, so Leo carefully picks them up, shakes the sand out of them and slips them on. The fabric of the jeans is soft and worn, and the shirt smells vaguely of some kind of tropical fruit, and both are clean and fit him perfectly.

He can't find shoes anywhere in the cave, though, so he ends up stepping out in the bright sunlight barefoot.

The cave isn't far from the beach, which is empty as far as he can see on either side. With a shrug, he decides to walk along it until he finds something. Calypso's home can't be that far, and he does need some time to think.

There's a question that's been running through his mind ever since he woke up. _Is he dead?_

He doesn't feel very dead, that's for sure. The sand beneath his feet and the wind on his face and the scent of the sea all around tell him that he's very much alive, but he _remembers_, he remembers what happened, how the arrow pierced his chest and he fell down and how there were tears in everyone's eyes and how he got to say his last words, everything he wanted to say, and how finally everything went completely dark. He remembers dying.

He remembers dying and he doesn't understand. But he swore an oath and now at least he gets to keep it, even though no one gets to visit Calypso's island twice except him, apparently.

And then he wonders. He wonders if the raft is going to come this time, if Calypso's already gotten over him and he's going to have to make her fall in love with him all over again, if he'll even get on the raft this time. Last time, he had something to go back to, something to do, he owed it to his friends. This time, he has nothing to go back to. Sure, he'll miss everyone, but they all think he's dead anyway and maybe it's for the best.

Soon enough, he reaches the section of beach that Calypso's home is nearest to. In the distance, he can make out the forge he built last time he visited the island. He spots smoke coming out of it, and wonders who might be using it. Surely it can't be Calypso. Or maybe... maybe there's another hero on the island.

With that thought in his head and ice in his heart, Leo starts making his way towards the forge.

* * *

The person working the forge is a girl with caramel coloured hair, dressed in blue jeans and a white shirt. The girl working the forge is Calypso.

Leo stares, wide eyed, as she slowly turns towards him and greets him with a serene smile.

"Hello Leo, how've you been?"

It takes him a moment before he can get himself together enough to reply.

"I've felt better before, that's for sure. I think I might be dead, actually."

"You are," she answers. "Hermes paid me a visit shortly after you arrived. He told me this was your parting gift from the gods. This is your Elysium, Leo. Your afterlife. I hope you like it here, because you won't be leaving this time, I'm afraid."

As Calypso's words sink in, a grin slowly but surely forms on Leo's face. Because while he might be dead, he's also free, and eternity in Ogygia also means eternity with Calypso.

"I don't mind," he answers. "I don't want to leave. Do you want me to?"

Calypso seems to hesitate for a moment, and Leo's heart skips a beat. He wants this, more than anything in the world. But does she?

"No, Leo," she finally whisper, her voice soft and resigned. "I do not want you to leave. But _you_ should want to leave. You shouldn't want to stay here. You should want your life back."

Leo can feel tears blossoming in his eyes, but Calypso just sighs.

"I am still completely in love with you, Leo. This evening, we shall see if the raft comes, if my curse has been lifted or not. But I am sure it will arrive, Leo, as such are the workings of fate. And if I were you, or the gods, for that matter, I would not so readily disturb the workings of fate."

And then she heads back into her home. Leo follows.

By the time the sun starts to disappear below the horizon, embracing the sea as the world becomes little but golden light and flames, Calypso's sitting down on the beach by herself with an apple in her hand, watching the water. To Leo, standing behind her, it almost looks as though she's watching the sunset, but he knows better: she's waiting for the raft.

There's a bitterness slowly creeping into Leo's heart, replacing the pain, but it's not towards Calypso. It's towards the gods, the Fates, the Titans, every single being responsible in any way for her exile. It's more than sad, almost terrifying in a way, her lack of faith in herself and most of all in the possibility of happiness.

Leo knows the raft won't come. Mostly, he's glad. He wants to stay on Ogygia, with Calypso, forever. But a part of him kind of wants it to arrive, because he's understood that Calypso doesn't want him here, and he doesn't want her to be disappointed.

Calypso waits and waits and waits, and Leo waits behind her, but in the end, the sun rises on an empty sea.

* * *

And so life on Calypso's island goes on. Calypso's invisible servants feed and clothe and take good care of Leo, but she avoids him as much as she possibly can. He spends his days in the forge; she spends her days in her gardens, sowing and taking care of her beloved plants and even playing the lyre sometimes, but she never sings, never speaks.

And then when evening comes, she walks to the beach, to the very end of the beach where the sea meets the sand, and sometimes she even dips her toes in the water and her clothes gets soaking when the tide comes up but she doesn't care. And Leo just stands behind her, all night long, watching her. And together they wait, though not for the same thing. She waits for the raft, she waits for Leo to leave, and he waits for her to turn around and realize that this is all he wants, all _she_ wants, and he waits for her to leap up and into his arms and kiss him. He waits for her to realize that the raft will not come, and that eternity exists and that they're going to spend it here, together, until darkness takes over and the world is reduced to nothing and even forever is forgotten.

But she never stops sitting and waiting and slowly Leo's hopes start to drown in sand and seawater and the certainty that she's never going to want him back. And slowly, Leo too starts to drown in his misery, so that soon, all he wants is for the raft to come, because even if he can't be happy he wants Calypso to be and if the only thing that could make her happy is his departure, then so be it.

And every night while he stands behind her, eyes scouring the dark waters stretching for miles in front of them, he feels like he's dying again, an invisible arrow thudding into his chest over and over, and it hurts more than anything he's ever felt before.

So one evening when he approaches her on the beach, there's a dagger at his belt. A freshly forged, celestial bronze dagger just sitting innocently on his hip, perfectly sharp and shiny and covered in jewels at the hilt, yet reflecting the moonlight with a dangerous glint that betrays its true purpose: to kill.

And that evening, he doesn't just stand behind her and watch. He walks all the way down to the very spot she's sitting, feet sinking into the sand, and sits down next to her. She doesn't even blink, doesn't even look over at him, not even for a second. He can't lie; it hurts.

"Why do you still await the raft? You know it won't come, don't you?"

"I know."

"Then why?"

"Because I want you to be happy, Leo."

"I am happy, here with you."

"Then perhaps because it is easier for me to be miserable on my own."

"Don't be miserable, Calypso. Be happy with me."

She pauses for a moment.

"Do you know how long I've been on this island, Leo?"

"No, I don't."

"Neither do I. I've lost count, at this point. Thousands of years, I suppose. I've grown tired of this place. I want to see the world, yet I know I never will. Even you will grow tired of this land after a while, believe me. And I do not want you to suffer the same fate as I have."

"I do not care how bored I grow of this place, as long as I am with you."

"Oh, but you will grow tired of me, too. Sooner or later, you will wish for death. Honestly, I would rather suffer Hades' worst punishments than stay here a second longer."

It's in that moment that Leo finally pulls the dagger from his belt.

"Do you think I can die again, Calypso?"

She ponders the question for a few moments, deep in thought, her eyes reflecting the gently light of the moon and stars far above. He can see in those eyes how much she longs to see that moon and those stars from a different place, even to be up there with them, and then he realizes that maybe she's right, that maybe death would be kinder than this.

It startles him when she answers.

"What is dead may never die," she says. There's an unwavering certainty in her voice that tells him she thinks she'll be alone forever. She's probably right.

"Am I dead, though?" he asks.

"That's a question only you can answer."

Leo just shrugs and raises the knife.

"Let's find out, then," he says before bringing it down towards his chest.

Calypso stops him just before the blade pierces his skin, shooting him a pleading look.

"If you go, I go with you."

Leo snorts.

"This isn't one of those cheesy romance movies where we end up not dying somehow and live happily ever after, Cal. If you choose to do this, there's no going back."

Calypso scowls.

"I'm not doing this for you."

"Fine, then" Leo shrugs and hands her the knife.

She smiles as she slits her own throat.

Then her prone form collapses onto the sand, blood leaking out of her to water the dry earth beneath as her eyes continue to stare unseeingly up at the sky.

Leo watches her for a second, a whisper of a sad smile on his face. Then he raises the dagger to his chest.

The blade pierces his skin in the very spot the arrow pierced it just weeks earlier.

And then his body collapses in the sand next to Calypso's.

* * *

In no time at all their bodies have crumbled away to nothing, leaving only dust that is washed away as the tide ebbs and flows. On Calypso's island the sun continues to shine, but it shines on the ruins of an old home instead of a lonely girl and her lover.

And Leo was right, eternity exists but everything is forgotten in time, and for a few centuries the gods occasionally look down at the island and allow a sad ghost of a smile onto their lips, but not even a millennia has passed before the island itself has drowned beneath the waves, taking all that's left of LeoandCalypso with it.

And in time, all that's left of what once was is a few grains of sand at the bottom of the ocean, until even these and the ocean and the world and forever are swallowed by the darkness that awaits all things and it doesn't really matter anymore that everything is forgotten, because there's no one left to remember it.

And so the darkness takes everything;

_(but in the darkness no dreams await.)_

_**-in fine narrationis;**_

_**in fine mundi-**_

* * *

_this was supposed to be all cute and fluffy and happy and I have no idea what happened I just wanted to make the fic longer and less cliché and tear worthy so yeah... _

_anyway thanks for reading, please review ^^_

_-kate .xx_


End file.
